Not Just the Plastic
by FrankandJoe3
Summary: Kid Flash and Robin breathe something in on a mission and are trapped in decontamination as a result.


**The idea for this, weirdly enough, came from hearing The Final Toast by Hawk Nelson. Michael, if you happen to come across this, you've got some sweet vocal chords. Never stop serenading that lady of yours.**

* * *

The mission had started like every other one before it.

Batman had called in the team of younger heroes and briefed them on a lower scale mission upstate- a throwaway job as Kid Flash bitterly remarked on the flight there- that would have them taking down a drug peddling ring that was rumored to have knowledge on another ring that would give light to some of Joker's movements after his last Arkham escape.

For the past few months, they had been given busywork, as they agreed on the way. After the discovery of the Light, it seemed like the Justice League was putting more effort to distancing their younger members from it than actually investigating it. Despite the frustration and hostility it was bringing to those young heroes, they kept their comments to themselves and accepted the work they were offered on the off chance it was a test, and at the least that it was something to do with their time.

They touched down a mile back from the site, a district of tall buildings that otherwise seemed inconspicuous, and they hurried alongside the shadows to break into their designated address.

Robin, as the designated lock picker, stood on Kid Flash's shoulders and picked open one of the higher set windows and accepted the boost, crawling in through the sill with ease. Once he had eased himself through, he went around to the door, making sure it wasn't tripped, and opened it for the others to get in. The speedster who had served as his step stool was the next through the door, a yellow and red blur that quickly turned white as a sharp puff of some chalky substance came down over them.

The teens froze in a quick panic and had the sense to hold their breaths after that first gasp, exiting the building and letting their powdery exteriors serve as enough warning for their teammates, but they hadn't so much as made it outside before they were hacking and wheezing their lungs' worth.

The next thing either of them knew, they were being dragged through big yellow tents, semi-conscious, by people in what Kid Flash would later deem 'Teletubby suits'. They were taken down a hallway draped in plastic, and then they were taken into separate rooms where the Teletubby people took them out of their costumes and forced them to stand, arms apart, while they hosed them down with water cold enough to bring them to their senses.

Kid Flash had the sense to try and run, vibrating his arms at a speed he intended to be enough to break the hold they had on him, but whatever was pumping through his system only gave him the coordination to make it a few steps before falling on his face.

Robin struggled on the holds they had on him, having a proper mind to try and bite through their suits, but his head was foggy and he didn't see it making much of a difference. As his muddied thoughts rushed to put together an escape plan, he seemed to recognize the format of the place, brow furrowing tightly.

"Am I..." his voice was robbed with a violent bout of coughing that would have bent him in half had he not been held up, "deconta..."

"Decontamination," one of the suited people confirmed, voice muffled behind the visor. "You and Flash Jr. breathed something in..."

The rest of the sentence was lost behind another coughing fit brought about by Robin trying to correct the name. It went until he was seeing in flashes of circles and the world pounded against his temples, and even then, he choked out a quiet, "Kid Flash," before his legs gave out in the sudden dizziness.

They were hosed off and put into hospital gowns, only catching a brief glance of the other stripped down to something more vulnerable than civvies before they were put in rooms- if you could go so far as to call a bed on wheels and plastic sheeting for walls a room- and given IV drips. The orders to stay put fell on unconscious ears and the Teletubby suits left the teenagers in solitude, closing the plastic flaps as they left.

* * *

Kid Flash was the first of the two to wake up. His green eyes were red and weary as they scanned the plastic walls, faint flickers of memories coming back to him in pieces, officialized when he noticed the IV in the back of his hand. He sat up carefully, intention to look outside the plastic, but he was knocked back with a coughing fit that he tried his best to muffle in his elbow. It wasn't as bad as the ones from before, but his chest still felt like it had been torn in half and his headache echoed the pain.

He stayed laying down and tried to assess his surroundings like that, but the stillness was agitating him and he could only drum his fingers on the stiff mattress so many times before he couldn't take it anymore. He swore he had seen Robin get dragged in here, too, albeit without his mask- and most of his clothes, and that meant company.

"Rob, you in here?" he asked the plastic walls, as loud as he could manage with the itch in his throat and the ache in his chest.

There was a pause, and for a moment he took it as a 'no', but he caught the end of a coughing fit before a weak, "Obviously," passed through the air.

Kid Flash couldn't tell what side it had come from, and he craned his head to look around, but the plastic was thick enough that he couldn't see anything past it. It didn't stop him from smiling.

He had never been good with small spaces, or needles in his hand for that matter, and his ADHD definitely wasn't helping his nerves. There was also the impending threat that whatever they had inhaled would kill them, but he was really trying not to dwell on that.

"Want to hold hands?" he asked the other wall.

"Wh- no!" Robin was fast on the reply, and Kid Flash laughed to himself. "I don't even know where you are, dude."

Poking his tongue between his lips, the redhead sat up carefully and reached out to push on each flap of plastic in case Robin was on the other side of any of them. When he didn't get a reaction, he assumed that they were either a little farther apart, or his friend was just ignoring him.

"Are we civvies right now?" Kid Flash asked the wall in front of him as he laid back down again, coughing lightly against the itch in his throat.

"I don't know about you, but I'm basically naked," Robin said a little sourly, definitely from the left of the speedster.

"Just like in my dreams," Kid Flash croaked, the laugh dying off in another coughing fit as he crawled out of the bed to wheel it towards the left wall.

He clung to the metal railing and rode it out until he had tears burning his eyes as hard as his chest was burning. When he could stand without gasping for breath, he pushed the bed the rest of the way and then crawled back up on it, groaning lightly under his breath.

"You okay?" Robin's voice came softly through the plastic.

Kid Flash suspected that they really were just a flap apart and Robin hadn't noticed his effort to move it. He touched a shaky hand to the plastic and felt that much better.

"I'm good, Rob."

There was a tiny sigh, and Kid Flash could see the flap move from the other side, as though his friend had touched it, too.

Then, softly, "The shades are off. You can call me Dick in here."

"I'm good, Dick," Wally corrected himself, but it sounded a lot less honest coming from his civvie lips than it had his alter ego's.

There was a silence between them, both just staring at the plastic flap that separated them, and then the flap moved again as, Wally assumed, Dick pulled his hand back. He watched the space with tired eyes.

"Are we sick?" the ebony asked in a small voice.

Wally stared harder.

"No," he prayed.

"Why else would we be in here?"

The redhead shut his eyes and took a deep breath, pulling his own hand back from the plastic and setting the clamor of his fingers to his hospital gown. The pounding in his temples was making it hard to think of any kind of lie that he could tell himself and the thirteen year old on the other side of the flap.

"'Cause Batman is paranoid," Wally suggested, maybe a little irritated, or maybe a little scared himself. "I dunno. You sure you don't want to hold hands?"

He heard Dick laugh and it was the only lie he needed to hear.

"I'm positive," the ebony assured him, and they both eventually drifted off again.

* * *

Dick wasn't the first one up this time either, but Wally's coughing was something like an alarm clock that stirred him with a sore groan. His head pounded, and anxiety hit him like waves. Breathing had been hard before, but now he was wheezing, fisting a trembling hand in the pillow he was nestling into.

"Dick?" Wally asked in a fairly casual voice once he had stopped coughing.

The ebony was labored in his breathing, and he couldn't be bothered to care when his, "Yeah?" came out a little snappy.

"Apocalypse. What's your game plan?"

Weary blue eyes stared at the plastic, thinking for a moment that whatever was in the IV drip was getting to his brain and making him hear things. Then, he seemed to remember that it was Wally asking, and he trusted his ears again.

"What?" he asked, curling his free arm around his stomach.

Wally gave a shaky little sigh, and he could hear his fingers drumming against the metal railing. "Come on, man. I can't stand being cooped up in here. Work with me. Apocalypse."

Dick swallowed hard and tightened his hold on the pillow with a little nod, forgetting his friend couldn't see him. To be honest, he could do with the distraction, too.

"Ah..." he fought through his headache for an answer. "I don't know. Texas would probably take care of it."

"That's a crap answer," Wally protested with a quiet laugh.

"Don't ask me then," the ebony grinned.

Shutting his eyes, Dick could pretend for a moment that they weren't in this decontamination tent. They were on one or the other's bed at three in the morning, talking about the world, and he wasn't as afraid.

"Alright, I got one," the sudden voice snapped Dick out of it, "What if _I _turned into a zombie right now?"

"I'd be one, too," Dick told the plastic. "We both breathed that stuff in."

"You're awful at this."

The ebony beamed, opening his eyes again, only to stare at the IV in the back of his hand. His smile lessened, and it must have carried into his voice.

"I told you, don't ask me."

Wally didn't respond, and Dick stared longer at the IV before he shut his eyes again. If he blocked everything else out, it was just the two of them and he could calm down. It worked for the most part, and he almost fell back asleep again.

"You know what I'd do?" Wally woke him up again.

Dick didn't bother to open his eyes. He just pictured the redhead and looked over at him in his mind.

"Right now, if you turned?" Wally added, and the ebony hummed curiously. "I think I'd probably hold you back with the IV pole. The bottom is kind of like... branched...?" there was a clinking sound, and the redhead swore, indicating that he had probably picked up the pole curiously and dropped it again, pausing again for a coughing fit, "a-and ah, then I'd use the IV tubes to restrain you, maybe like a collar. You could be my pet zombie until we found a cure. I'd like... teach you tricks, and stuff. Roll over. Eat brains. You know, cute stuff like that."

"That's great, Wally," Dick gave a breathy laugh into the pillow, and tried muffling his own coughing fit that resulted.

"Thanks, man."

With Wally taking up a silence and the fifteen year old keeping his eyes shut, he was almost able to fall asleep once more when his friend had some more insight.

"You know what bugs me?" Wally asked, not waiting for an answer. "Like, a lot? Our costumes."

Dick hummed his agreement, and for a moment, considered lifting his IV bag in a toast. The effort would've been lost, though, seeing that neither could see the other. He settled for imagining it, and imagining the stupid face his friend would make as a result.

"Well, I mean, my mask at least," Wally went on. "I only cover like, the bridge of my nose and my eyebrows. You can even see my freckles! It wouldn't be hard for a baddie to get my name."

The fifteen year old smiled, and swallowed to try and get up enough voice to add on, but Wally wasn't done talking.

"And with your costume, Boy Wonderful... I get that it's supposed to be appealing. I mean, it is! You look wonderful- er," he stopped as Dick laughed, as though that had been his aim, and then he went on, "you know what I mean. But, realistically, you've got a lot of skin showing and you're only hiding your eyes. You're a famous face, dude. People will eventually recognize you, if you don't get shot up before. I think you should get a full face helmet... maybe full arms..."

"I think my pretty face is my best defense," Dick finally got a word in, huffing at the effort it had taken.

"Devilish charm is my department, Dick. You've got the cool... flippy stuff, you know? I look up and you're some kind of black and red hamster wheel down the field."

Dick laughed at the image, and clenched his jaw as his throat roared in protest. His chest was throbbing out of sync with the throb in his head, and it was harder to ignore now. He lifted one hand out towards the plastic again and grazed it with his fingertips, wheezing as he waited for his lungs to catch up. The plastic just beside his fingers moved as something else on the other side pressed against it and just for a moment, he ran his hand over it before he pulled back to the pillow.

"I'm scared, Wally," he said quietly, and this time, the redhead had nothing to say.

He waited, maybe wanting reassurance that it was okay, or maybe that he wasn't alone in this, but he didn't get either. There was just silence, and the bulge against the plastic.

"We've been in here for... god knows how long... and no one has said why. I-If that stuff that hit us... is... some kind of disease..." he stopped to cough, and he coughed until he cried out in pain from it.

On the other side of the plastic he heard his friend give something close to a whimper, and it only made things worse. The itch in his throat was a constant pulse now, and his body racked with the occasional dry-cough that hurt all that much more, tears welling in his eyes.

"I didn't want to die like this," he said quietly, enough so that he was sure his friend couldn't hear.

"Then how?" Wally's voice came abruptly, and the ebony flinched at the suddenness of it.

He brought a trembling knuckle up to his eyes and wiped at them carefully. "W...?"

"You said you didn't want to die like this. How _did _you want to die?" Wally clarified.

Dick stared at the plastic, but it bared no resemblance to the face he really needed to see right now.

"I'm... _scared_, dude. I don't want to talk-"

"We're fine, Dick. Look, I was thinking about it while you were sleeping earlier. Do you really think Batman would trap you in an isolated little room with nothing but my rambling voice in your final hours?"

Dick was silent, a huge weight lifting from his chest. Wally was right. Bruce may not have been the father of the year, but the old man cared for him, and would have seen to it that he was there at the mansion with him and Alfred, and not here alone in a tent with no one but the plastic and his friend's disembodied voice.

"I could kiss you," the thirteen year old gave a watery laugh, and he heard his friend echo it.

"Some other time. I'll take an answer instead. Ideal death."

Dick gave a quiet sigh, a happier sigh, and he thought about it. He had thought about this often- not out of sadness or anguish, but out of passing from time-to-time when the thought struck his mind.

"I... I'd want it to be where I didn't expect it at all. I'd want to be with friends... family, maybe... and to be laughing when it happens," he decided after some thought, and then he gave a sadder laugh. "With my luck, though, if this doesn't do me in, I'll just trip on a rock or something."

He coughed into the pillow, and apologized when he noticed he had cut the redhead off.

"I was just saying that you don't give yourself enough credit. It'd at least be a boulder."

Dick grinned to himself. "Thanks. So. Ah, you, then?"

"Me?" Wally repeated.

"The ah... death... thing," Dick clarified.

Wally gave a little hum, as though he were thinking about it.

"Wait, let me guess," Dick rushed out, and apologized as he started coughing again. "Hot bikini babe on your arm, shades on, classic rock in the background?"

His friend laughed weakly before having a coughing fit himself, and Dick really hoped that Wally had had a point earlier.

"Nah, but that _would _be nice. Maybe throw in a golden jaguar and a bonfire behind me," he pretended to consider it, and then he shrugged it off. "I was thinking... okay, it's kind of lame, but... I'd like it to be so... I knew... that I saved somebody. Saved the whole world, even. That'd be nice, I think."

"Yeah," Dick agreed, with a little smile.

The two talked for what felt like hours, breaking up for coughing fits and the occasional nap or two, but the Teletubby people eventually came back, looking a lot less like Teletubbies. They pulled back all of the plastic before addressing the teens, and they regarded each other with big grins before turning to face the others.

They were assured that they weren't infected with any kind of fatal disease that would take them out within the hour, or anything like that. It wasn't a disease at all, they went on. It had to be some kind of concoction from an Arkham type, although a little out of Joker's MO, that had simulated plague like symptoms for them. The doctors suspected that it was their brief encounter with it that spared them from any real harm, besides some chest pain and massive headaches which, just like the coughing, were expected to cease in two days max.

Bruce and both Mary and Rudolf West were there and waiting with actual clothes for them to put on, something both boys accepted gratefully, although a little exhaustedly. Before they left, as Wally was sliding his shirt on with a little protesting wheeze from the effort, Dick leaned against one of the support beams of the tent and smirked at him.

"'Wanna hold hands?'" he mocked.

"Shut up," Wally laughed weakly, and they grinned at each other, not just the plastic, before walking out.

* * *

**-F.J. III**


End file.
